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UNESCO Adds 61 Sites to World Heritage List
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has added 61 natural and historical sites to its World Heritage list, including Qingcheng Mountain, located in Sichuan Province, China.
On Thursday, November 30, UNESCO listed the new World Heritage sites in a communique. The list included the Valley of Loire in France; Bruges, a historical center in Belgium; Hamlet's castle in Eleseneur, Denmark; Verona, the Italian city in which "Romeo and Juliet" is set; Arequipa, a historical center in Peru; Saint-Louis Island in Senegal; and Qingcheng Mountain in China.
UNESCO now considers 691 sites from 122 countries to be of "exceptional universal value."
The new sites were selected by the UNESCO Committee of World Heritage, which held its annual session on Wednesday in Cairns, Australia.
For the first time, sites from Azerbaijan, Malaysia, Nicaragua and Surinam have been included on the World Heritage list.
The first coffee plantations in Cuba and an old industrial town in Blaenavon, Britain, as well as the Loire Valley in France that features a dozen medieval castles, are among the "cultural landscapes" selected this year.
South Africa's Drakensberg Park has been selected as a "mixed site" because it is of both cultural and natural significance.
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